Running Away
by Mocha2
Summary: Some people have a hard time letting go... Chapter 4 is up (M/A)
1. Touch

Running Away   
"Touch"  
by: Mochaije

Spoilers: The night after the end of "Borrowed Time", no actual spoilers if you're in North America.  
Rating: PG 13  
Summary: An accidental run-in with Max leaves Logan dead and gone... And one year later, her life is about to get very, very different. M/A (sorta)  
A/N: M/L bores the piss out of me and this will be the end of it. (Sorry.) I don't want loads of reviews or anything but if I don't get *some* I will not update... And yeah, it jumps time frames a bit next chapter but it's explained. :) So review! And about the title of the story... There's running away from emotions, from White, and from each other, so I thought it fit nicely. 

The musty bar air filled Alec's nostrils as Sketchy, Cindy, Max, and himself concentrated on the television, yelling out and taking a gulp of beer whenever the eleven o'clock news reporter blamed something on the country's diminished state. 

"And world leaders are saying today that, because of the world's fading economical status--" the quartet gave a shout and slurped loudly on their beers, Max downing more than any of them. He asked her if she was okay, but she shrugged his comment off, eyes glued on the run-down TV. It flickered and the old red, white, and blue that was Eyes Only's signature appeared. The entire bar groaned together, except for the brunette to Alec's right, her gaze unwavering. 

"This is an Eyes Only streaming freedom bulletin, and it will last sixty seconds," the crowd chanted along with the intro. "It cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in this city." Several tables picked up their beers and chugged, as if Eyes Only had a drinking game all his own. As his main message started, everyone went back to their own business, no longer caring about the injustice of the world. 

"Max," Alec whispered softly. She hadn't blinked since the cable hack had started, but her name snapped her out the daze. 

"What?" she demanded, flustered. "I'm just... Not feeling that great." Her roommate laughed from across the booth and then quickly bit her tongue, remembering she was the only person there-- besides Max-- who knew Eyes Only's identity. Max shot her a look as Eyes Only signed off and the news came back on. 

"--Partly caused by the Pulse--" The Jam Pony employees rudely interrupted the broadcast once again with their enthusiastic yelling, downing the rest of their beers. Alec felt Max try to get up and leave from beside him, so he quickly hopped out of his seat. 

"Going somewhere?" His tone was a bare gurgle and she laughed drunkenly, smiling. 

"Maybe I am." Winking, she staggered over to the exit, but he caught her arm and she whirled. They looked at each other for a minute, the moment taking away their intoxicated states for a brief second as they stood, his arm on her forearm in the middle of the Crash. 

A burp erupted from his throat. "You..." Another burp came, and Max grinned sheepishly. "Lied to me." _Damn, she's hot..._

The grin turned into a smile. "Oh? What about? Do inform me, drunk one." Futilely, Max waved her arm back and forth in an attempt to get him to let go of it, then she got right in his face, their bodies not even an inch apart. "Come on then, let me have it." 

But before he could tell her, he passed out clumsily into drunken arms that couldn't support his weight. 

----- 

The first thing Alec noticed was that he was not in a bed, and definitely not in his vintage-feel home. The couch he was on was stiff as hell. His eyes opened slightly and saw Max and Logan standing about ten feet away from, her head in her hands as if in pain. He handed something to her... A bottle of pills? ...in a soft throwing motion to avoid touching her, and she smiled softly before downing a few of whatever was in there and handing it back to him. 

Even from two metres away and going through a hangover, Alec could see her fingers graze his and the horror on both their faces as he bolted for the bathroom. Max looked especially pained as she followed, their voices dim as they panicked together about whether or not Logan had succumbed to the virus again. He couldn't make out the words, only the worried tones that flowed from their mouths. 

His head started to clear and he could at last decipher what they were saying. "Logan!" Max called frantically but not loudly, about a foot from the bathroom door. "Are... Are you okay?" Her voice broke as she leaned against the corner wall at the end of the hallway, right next to the washroom, hands gently clasping the darkly-painted drywall. 

"Max," Alec called softly, sitting up despite the instant nausea it caused him. Her head flitted towards him at the sound, the heartbreak on her face even clearer when she looked at him. He could also tell that she was shaking now. "Um, are _you_ okay?" 

She walked over, hands visibly vibrating, and sat down beside him. "I-I'm fine," she tried to smile and failed, looking away. "It's a neurological condition." 

"Seizures, huh?" He belched and her smile finally came, as did his. They stared at each other again for a moment until Logan walked back into the room, face falling when he remembered Max wasn't well and the man beside her was still a bit drunk. Alec saw him look at his hands again from the corner of his eye, but didn't take notice. 

Who cared if Logan was dying? Max was actually happy to be around him for once, even if she was starting to seize. He didn't want her affection necessarily; but he didn't want her absence either. It was nice to have someone happy, even if just for a split second. Then the moment was gone and Max jumped up from her seat to help the man she loved. Alec watched, not hearing anything, not feeling anything except an incredible need to vomit from being hungover. 

Her eyes almost sprung with tears when Logan broke the news, but she was too stubborn to let more than a single tear drop. Everything slowed as she seemingly whirled her head around, hair flying, telling Alec to drive them to the damned hospital. It was too late though... His eyes glazed over and rolled back as he blacked out again. 

----- 

Eleven hours later, Max sat on the swing next to his, babbling incoherently about nothing until Alec started listening. "...He's going to die." The park around them seemed too cheery, with kids and their parents running around and the sun shining. The sun didn't deserve to shine, not then. The tough, bendy swing underneath him hurt his hipbones slightly, his frame too big for a child's swing, the metallic frame creaking if they swung together. Alec looked at Max, and she looked away. 

"And I'm going to say that it's all my fault. Then I'm going to blame him. Then Manticore. It's like a three-step process that I go through every time something bad like this happens. Why are we on the swings?" She looked back at him on the final sentence and he just shrugged. 

"It's just... Bad. When you guys left... After Gossamer... I found him in a Cadillac convertible." Her gaze returned to the play structures ahead. "He said that he sat on his couch for days after I'd been gone. It hurt too much to move." 

Alec smirked. "Aww. It took you guys that long to get that crap out in the open?" Sighing, she shook her head and continued. 

"That's why I don't like you," Max explained with a huff. "I'm trying to be serious about something... And you make fun of it. You're such an asshole." There wasn't any menace because she monotoned the whole thing, but that made all the more impact. 

"Look..." And so she did, squinting slightly because the sun was right behind him. "I don't think not being able to touch should change everything like that... It sounds pretty stupid," Alec lamented. 

"It is," Max admitted sorrowfully. "Every time I was around him last year, I just felt... Alive. Then we couldn't touch and it was out the window. Just for that twelve hours, we could touch and it all came flooding back again. It's cruel to have something like that happen and now- and now _this_. I barely even grazed his finger and now he's going to..." 

Her voice cracked. "I'm gonna go talk to him. I'm sure they're done the examination by now, right?" Alec nodded, trying to be a bit more sensitive. She got up to leave and turned, beckoning him to follow. 

----- 

Max closed the glass door behind her, taking in the sight of it all as her head panged again. _Goddamned seizures,_ she almost moaned. Logan's room had once been a quarantine, spick n' span in an effort to keep out bacteria... And to keep the ones inside from spreading to other patients. Now it was merely a run-down glass room in a block of twenty like it, and in a poor dissarray. The once-laminated linoleum peeled from it's concrete and wood base, and the pink-painted walls-- something people pre-Pulse thought could calm down patients-- were stripping as well. Flowery room-separators covered the large glass window that were standard issue in every room, but they were decorated in old vomit and blood stains from years past. 

She hadn't even looked at Logan yet, but the sight of him almost brought up anything she'd eaten that day. His diseased body was spotted with lesions, his usually perfect face marred by infected cuts and other things that had popped up from the virus. Small plastic tubing ran in his nose and behind his ears, the kind of thing everyone in the hospital seemed to wear. The regular-issue gown they'd given him caught the blood and pus that the lesions were oozing, and he just looked like a big, virus-infected mess. 

Sitting down in the visitor's chair beside Logan, Max rested her arms and head on the metal bars that lined his bed; the kind of thing each hospital bed was outfitted with to keep people from rolling onto the cracked floor. Her eyes welled up and she allowed herself to cry for the first time in too long. 

"Logan," she whispered. "I'm so... I'm so, so, _so_ sorry." His eyes flew open at the sound and he looked at her shaking form, draped on the side of his bed. 

His voice hoarse, he barely even got a few words out. "Max," her name was barely even audible. "It's okay. We'll get... Through... This..." Max sat up a little to see his face, trying so desperately to smile or be hopeful. It was past the twelve-hour mark, he was screwed. They both knew that, neither of them wanting to outright admit to it. 

"Yeah," she choked, a stubborn smile tugging at her full lips. "We will." There seemed to be something she wasn't quite saying, as if she couldn't form the words. After a moment, she managed at last... But it hadn't been just a moment, it'd been since their twelve-hour virus cure, since she'd come back, since she'd died in his arms, even before then. She'd been trying to say it forever, and every single time she tried, she was interrupted either by herself or by something out of her control... Or he just didn't hear it. 

"I love you, Logan." 


	2. Blood and Tears

Running Away   
"Blood and Tears"  
by: Mochaije

Spoilers: After "Borrowed Time", no actual spoilers if you're in North America.  
Rating: PG 13  
Summary: Some people have a hard time letting go... M/A  
A/N: I currently don't have anything else written on this story, but I'll hurry if I get a lot of reviews... 

Max's running shoes evenly padded the floor of the Harbour Lights morgue. She had to see him, had to know what she'd done to him. 

This was her fault. All of this. Logan was dead at her hands and she couldn't even utter a sob. Her words had no emotion since the day before, her features colourless, a poker face securely glued. 

_"I keep thinking about the night we took down Manticore...when I thought I'd lost you. I came home and sat on my sofa and I didn't get up again for days. The sun came up...the sun went down...I just sat there. It was like I couldn't move. It hurt too much to move. That's how I feel right now..."_

She came to a set of flimsy doors and brushed her way through them. There were six beds out in front of her, all with feet dangling and small cards loosely strung to one of their big toes. Max couldn't bring herself to read the cards and ages, so she simply pulled back the sheet of the first corpse she happened upon. 

_"I knew this would happen. We shouldn't have taken the chance." _

"We had to. You know we did. We can't keep going through this, though." 

"I know." 

The wide-open eyes of a young, blonde boy stared up at her and she almost jumped a foot into the air. Shaking, she replaced the stiff, white blanket and moved onto the next bed. _That kid... He's not even twelve. Oh my God._ It was easy to see that the next person was not even male, from the small darts in the starched cover. Next. 

_"That year we wasted, dancing around each other, afraid of actually admitting how we felt...If I had that time back, I would do that so differently..."_

The man looked so peaceful, almost serene, as if meant not to be of the living any more. His eyes were softly shut, white hair decorating his head. Logan had brown hair, she reminded herself, once again replacing the sheet. 

_ "Well, I guess that's it." _

Max's Nikes squeaked noisily against the linoleum and she turned apprehensively. No one was there, except her and a half a dozen dead guys. She froze with the knowledge that these people would never again wake, brush their teeth, eat breakfast, work, see, hear... And she could be next. The impact of that was oddly refreshing and boosted her courage, knowing she had something so precious that she'd taken away from so many people. Her hand reached out and pulled back the sheet covering the third person. 

_"I love you, Max." _

----- 

Asha burst into tears. "You were the only chance we had, you stupid bitch." Pow. The back of his hand hit her face, turning her head almost all the way to her right. She heard the sound of a gun being loaded, her eyes shut tight from being knocked around so bad. Her lip bled, forming a mess on her face and taking away her ability to think straight. She came close to passing out, but his hand hit her face again. 

At last! She managed enough strength to free her hands from the ropes that held them, behind the chair she was tied to. Her arms fell uselessly to her sides and she slouched, delirious. Before Asha had any idea what was going on, he slammed her back into a strict posture and tied a rope around her torso and the chair. There was the faint sound of squeaking pliers, and then she felt them squeezing gently on her teeth. 

"Now," he said, infuriated. "You're going to tell me who the fuck you told." Barely managing a headshake, she felt one of her back molars being ripped from her gums. She screamed in pain and he tore out another, ignoring the incredible noise eminating from her throat. 

"Wanna tell yet?" He smiled at her, even though she couldn't see it. No response. The next tooth was more painful than the others, for it was a wisdom tooth that Asha had been planning on having removed. The blood raced into her throat and the man tilted her head back, its sickening copper toast choking her rapidly. Any attempt to breathe through her nose was squashed by the fact that it was so badly broken and also bleeding heavily. 

"Fine!" He yelled, tearing out the last molar in that part of her mouth. Asha's screams were now muffled gurgles. Her head swam from lack of oxygen and blood loss. She opened her eyes as much as she could, looking through tiny slits in the large, swollen bruises that marred her appearance... 

And stared down the barrel of a gun. 


	3. Eyes Only

Running Away   
"Eyes Only"  
by: Mochaije

Spoilers: After "Borrowed Time", no actual spoilers if you're in North America.  
Rating: PG 13  
Summary: Some people have a hard time letting go... M/A  
A/N: Sorry for the length of time this took... Review and chpater four will be up much, much fatser. Let's say... More than five reviews for this one? You want to. :) 

Asha ran a finger over the miniscule bumps on the inside of her elbow. She couldn't see the swollen veins and bruises however; it was too dark in her small cell to see the aftermath of her horrifying ordeal. 

She lifted her hand from her arm to the back of her neck to feel the bump there. They'd given her some cover-up for it, and a little bit of anti-bacterial cream to keep the swelling down. Her moderately-toned body was somewhat resisting the Red implant, but according to the people holding her, "nothing beats a Red". A knock came at her door and she tried to sit up straight, the sedatives making her head swim as she did so. 

The door opened, and she shielded her eyes with her forearm. Unable to see who was there, she'd have to rely on her poor voice-recognition skills. "Asha," a man said in a gruff, hoarse voice. "It's time." 

Asha squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again, took her arm away, trying to adjust to the light. "Time for what?" Her own voice sounded as if she had bronchitis, but it was just rusty from lack of use. The man chuckled softly. 

"For you to kill White." 

Nauseated, she cleared her throat. "Excuse me? No way in hell I'm gonna go kill him. Have Max do it." He grunted and sat down beside her on the small jail bed. 

"She doesn't trust me." 

"Not my problem." She looked right at him, at his gruff, wrinkled face and light hair. "I'm not gonna do that. Not my fight." 

He chuckled some more. "The day you became involved with Eyes Only... Is the day it became your fight." 

Asha was taken aback. "I work for an informant, genius. Good try. Why the hell would Eyes Only want to tangle with White or whatever anyway?" 

Lydecker sighed. "Because... He's in love with her. He's in love with Max." He looked away. "I have to find White, have that bastard killed. Him and Renfro--" 

"Hold it," Asha interrupted. "Renfro? Eyes Only is in love with Max?" She still didn't understand; _It's probably the drugs,_ Lydecker thought. 

"Never mind," he replied. "Him and Renfro are trying to systematically kill the X5 series, and everyone else that escaped from Manticore... And you can stop them. With that implant. But you've only got two or three months before you--" 

She tuned him out, dazed. Far as she knew, only one person was in love with Max... And that was Logan. _It would explain the broadcasting equipment,_ she considered. Huh. Logan was Eyes Only. "Before I what?" 

Lydecker coughed loudly. "Never... Never mind," he said, avoiding the subject. "Get some sleep... When you're better, we'll explain all of this to you." He left, closing the door behind him and sealing her in her room. Why were they cautious of her? Did she have some sort of disease? 

Asha lay back down on her bed, sleep coming quickly because she was so heavily sedated. Closing her eyes, she ran her tongue over the places where most of her molars had once been... 

----- 

Max slammed her locker shut and turned around, leaning against it. Her eyes searched the crudely attatched labels of the other lockers. A Sam had evidently replaced Alec while she'd been 'sick' for the past two days. _He's fine,_ she reassured herself. _Zack used to skip town a lot. I'm sure Alec hasn't even left Seattle._

"You 'aiight, boo?" Original Cindy asked, genuinely concerned, looking up at her from the bench. Max hadn't told anyone about Logan, and she'd asked Alec to keep it to himself as well. She felt undeserving of their sympathy. "First you're all sick and outta town for two days, then you get back lookin' blue." 

She stared at Sam's nameplate instead of trying to make eye contact. "I needed to clear my head." Her response fell flat and Cindy stood, trying to get Max to at least look at her. 

"Original Cindy _knows_ that ain't why you trippin'. I'm gonna break it down for you--" Max grabbed her arm, eyes widened at a chance to change the subject. 

Her friend looked confused at her reaction. "You just referred to yourself in the first person! Do you know what this means?" 

"You an' RoboBoy doin' okay, suga?" She asked. Max was a little taken aback but she recovered quickly. 

"Um... We got a lead on the... Virus... And I'm having dinner at his place tonight at... Shit... Six," Max smiled, trying to convince her. "Yup. Me and Logan eating pasta he can't afford, that's the plan." 

----- 

Max dismounted her bike and tucked it into a nearby bush. She'd somehow managed to keep Original Cindy believing that she was going to Logan's for dinner, but she'd already had other plans in mind. Easily, she grabbed the six pack of beer from the storage compartment on the back of ehr bike and headed into the building, walking all the way down the hall. Her hand pounded on the door for a moment before Alec appeared. 

"Hey," Max smiled weakly, indicating the beer. 

"Hey, yourself." He barely noticed her, rgabbing a can for himself and carrying the rest into his apartment. She rolled her eyes and followed. 

"So..." Her voice trailed, eyes wandering to the television across the room. It flickered a couple of times until the entire screen filled with static. "Um, cable's out," she monotoned, looking over at him. 

The white noise from the static stopped suddenly. "Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is an Eyes Only streaming freedom video bulletin. It cannot be traced, it cannot be stopped, and it is the only free voice left in this city." Max's head flicked back over to the TV. 

"Transgenics walk among us." Alec looked over as well. "They are filth, sporting a peculiar barcode tattoo on the backs of their necks." On cue, a picture of a torn-off barcode taped to a piece of paper replaced the trademark eyes. Max looked at Alec for a moment, knowing where that barcode had come from. 

"Twelve of them escaped in oh-nine, led by this man..." Zack appeared on the screen. "He is dangerous and not to be trusted. With them were several others-" Pictures of Max, Ben, and Jace flashed- "And to this day, only one of them remains. Yes, Max Guevara, we know where you are." Max stiffened. "We know your social security number, we know where your apartment is, we know your license plate, we know you work at Jam Pony." 

"We also know that you released even more transgenic filth upon the world when we attempted to destroy them. By the way, _Max_, where are Logan Cale and Asha Barlow? Dead? While we're on, how about we reveal the identity of the true Eyes Only." 

"Jesus Christ," Max whispered. "Logan..." 

"Logan Cale, mid-30s, broadcasts from his penthouse apartment because, being the dickhead that he is, he can't be bothered to do something real with his life. He is an enemy of many, and we will find him and ensure his death. This has been an Eyes Only broadcast. Peace. Out." She stood, staring at the television as it returned to the cheesy gameshow. 

"Max..." Alec walked over to her. 

"Now everyone knows," she said weakly. "_Everyone_ knows. About Logan, about me, about everything." She turned to leave. "I need some air-" 

"Max," he grabbed her arm and she glared at him. "We need to leave town, not run off to the fucking Space Needle and wait." 

She rolled her eyes. "Would you just keep your nose out of my life?" 

"What?" 

"Oh _come on_," her tone was harsh. "You followed me to Logan's after I got out. Then you showed up again. Then Normal gave you a job. Can't you just go away?" 

Alec let go. "Fine... You know what? _Go_. Wait for White to find you." And with that, she was gone. 

----- 

I wonder what would've happened if I'd just decided to run. Fuck, I'm sick of running... I find a place to call home and then Manticore chases me out of it. Maybe Logan was right, everything is Manticore's fault. 

Gingerly, I sat down on the cement roof of the Needle, staring out over the horizon. I close my eyes and try to blank out what they'll do to me if they don't straight kill me, what they'll do to Alec. I know White's probably got equipment that could laugh in the face of what Manticore had... Besides, Manticore's stuff wasn't even designed for torture. They just wanted me back on their side; they wanted me to talk about where the others were, they wanted me to be a good little soldier and lay down for Alec. 

Now that I think about, he's not really a bad person. Annoying, yes, but not... Bad. He tries to be nice, maybe even friendly towards me, and I've given him the cold shoulder every time. When was the last time I was nice to him? When Rachel died? I suppose I probably should've left him alone then, knowing us Manticore types and all. I understand now what he was going through, if only just a little bit... Manticore wanted someone dead. He had to do it, no free will there. And he tried to avoid it, to keep the truth from her, and then something simple happened to completely ruin his plan... 

I know any of us would die before going back, especially having to go to White. If we didn't, we'd be okay with ending it all from guilt. We'd die to keep another person living, even if it meant living in a hell hole like Manticore for, quite possibly, the rest of their lives. 

The weight of Logan's gun in my backpack isn't much, just enough to remind me that it's there. If I had to do something so drastic as use it... Could I even bring myself to do that? To end my life just to make sure White didn't get some sick satisfaction out of doing it himself? I couldn't kill myself or anyone else, not any more. The real world softened me too much to things like that, especially after Ben died. 

Shit... Ben... How am I going to explain all of that to Alec? "Oh, gee, your twin decided that the Blue Lady thought he was weak, so he tattooed his victims before hunting them down and ripping out his teeth. By the way, I snapped his neck out in the woods somewhere." Maybe, some day when I figure out the right way to say that, I will. 

Yeah, right. I couldn't hurt him like that. 


	4. This Side Up

Running Away   
"This Side Up"  
by: Mochaije

Spoilers: After "Borrowed Time", no actual spoilers if you're in North America.  
Rating: PG 13  
Summary:Logan dies à la virus, putting Max into one awkward situation after another... And allowing her enemies to catch her off-guard. M/A  
A/N: Review review review! 

_ Max slowly lifted the third sheet and looked down at the body. Some twenty-something kid. Sighing, she noticed a clipboard on the wall with the names of any terminally ill patients that were not expected to recover. It was dated for that morning; Logan had probably died during the night. She walked over and scanned down the sheet, looking for his name. _

Logan Cale  
Status: Uncomfirmed 

Her face lit up; that meant he wasn't actually dead. He'd only had twenty-four hours- if that- and his time was now running on almost thirty-eight hours. The flimsy set of doors swung open and she whirled. 

"Um- I was just going to-" The young doctor shook his head. 

"It's okay. You're Max Guevara, I'm guessing." Max gulped, nodding. "Looking for Mr. Cale?" She nodded again. 

"Yeah. So are we." 

Alec whistled impatiently, trying to shake Max from her daze. "Everybody home in there?" 

"Huh? What?" _What the hell did they mean, they were looking for him too?_ She looked up from the floor and raised her fists in a defensive motion, swaying from her back foot to the front one. "Come an' get me," she smiled, taunting him. He swung and she ducked, punching him hard in the abdomen as she went down. Her feet swung out from under her as she hit the floor, catching his legs and sending him to the ground. 

"Ha," she laughed, helping him up. "How long were you in Manticore, exactly? Twenty-two, maybe twenty-four years..." Max eased her stance a little bit, adjusting her tank top. Neither of them were dressed in actual streetclothes; Alec looked like he was ready to go back to Seattle's underground boxing scene, and she was dressed in an outfit she'd wear to a gym, if she went to one any more. 

His fist hit her face suddenly and she backed away by about a foot, surprised. It didn't hurt, though... He was obviously holding back. He blocked her when she went for his head, and a grunt came from Max's throat as his knee hit her abdomen. _Okay, that one hurt,_ she grumbled to herself. She went for his head again, trying to shake any thought of Logan from her mind. 

"Oh _come on_," he smirked, pummeling her four or five times in the gut before kicking her again. She tried clumsily to block him, but he was too fast and wasn't hitting where she expected him to. Mx blurred out of sight for a moment, rolling over Alec's crouched body, grabbing him by the shoulders and throwing him to the ground. 

She grinned wickedly. "I win." 

----- 

"Okay, give me three good reasons you're still in Seattle," Alec mentioned later. They sat in a low-end diner, Max blocking him from her view with a faded menu. "Hmm? There has to be a reason." 

She put the menu back on the table. "I should ask you the same thing." 

"So?" he questioned, grinning. 

"I _live_ here, Alec," she pointed out. "I'm not going to let White and his phony Eyes Only broadcasts scare me away from having a life. Why are you still here?" 

He was silent for a moment and Max tilted her head slightly, looking at him, impatient. "You," he said softly. 

"What?" 

"Come on... If I wasn't around-" 

"I'd be a lot less annoyed all the time," Max shot back, uncomfortable with the idea of him having any sort of feelings for her, friendly or otherwise. "Oh, and me and Logan wouldn't have had that damn Virus bitch going on." 

"That was not my fau-" 

"Bullshit!" Max interrupted, picking up the menu again. 

He rolled his eyes, even though she couldn't see him do it. "I didn't make the virus... And if I hadn't told you about it he would've been dead a lot sooner." 

"He's not dead," she barely whispered, her voice breaking. "They... Don't even know where he is. Maybe he exploded into spores or White's got him or- I don't even want to think about it. Why'd you bring it up?" 

There was a long beat as he took that in. Even though Max wasn't visibly mourning, she wasn't over him... But he was _missing_ now? "I didn't," he gently corrected her. "You did." 

----- 

"Are all my cards supposed to have crudely-drawn faces on them?" Asha asked innocently, looking at the guard. They sat in the guards' break station, almost jumping when the water cooler bubbled. She drew her knees up on the chair, freezing. For a break room, the small cell was very ill-maintained. 

"Yeah," he said sarcastically, pushing the chips and bills over to her side of the crooked table. "All faces." He groaned, looking at his cards and running a hand over his shaved head. 

"So," she smiled, getting up to shove the money in her pocket. "Another game next week, same bat time, same bat hell hole?" 

"If you're still here," he grunted a laugh. She gave him a confused look. 

"Why wouldn't I be here? I'm not ready to do my- stuff- um- yet," she pointed out. 

"The first rule of Project Mayhem is that you do not ask questions." 

She laughed. "What movie are you mocking this week? Fight Clu-" Asha suddenly stood stock-still as an almost electric spasm ripped down her spine, starting at the back of her neck and ending at her toes. She slumped back onto her chair, in incredible pain. The guard watched her struggle for breath as she fell to the ground, seizing. 

----- 

A petite teenager walked over to them and happily introduced herself, trying to engage Max and Alec in bad diner banter. After she told them about the third special while making doe eyes at Alec, Max just interrupted cheerfully. 

"A big plate of fries," she chirped. "And some sort of caffeinated beverage." 

"Yuh," the girl nodded, not wanting to speak to her. She looked over at Alec and smiled, twirling her hair. "And for you?" 

"Same," he said flatly. She looked a bit disgusted and stomped off. 

Max watched her go and almost laughed. "Shafted!" she mocked. Alec gave her a look. "Aw, don't worry about that. Adoration comes with being pefect." There was a long, uncomfortable beat as they tapped their toes and twiddled their thumbs, waiting for the food to arrive. "So... Talked to Asha lately?" 

"Huh? No." He watched the clock for a minute or so. 

"Wonder what she's up to," Max continued. 

----- 

"Idiots!" White yelled. The two men stared at the floor, avoiding his gaze as he paced in front of them. "You get someone who knows _everything_ about Eyes Only and Max and you fuck it up. Familiars are supposed to be dependable, not a bunch of fucking nimrods." 

"Yes, sir," they chorused. White just paced faster. 

"And to think, you let normals get to her. _Normals!_" 

"We didn't see a need to blow our cover, sir." 

He stopped his angry pace. "Tough. Who got her?" 

"I believe it was Lydecker, sir." White laughed, shaking his head. 

"Find him and break his legs. Then bring the girl to me." 

----- 

Asha lay in the infirmary some time later, wheezing, her senses confused. Even though her sight was hazy and her hearing was dulled, she could still make out Lydecker's voice from across the room. Another short spasm tore through her and she let out a small yelp. Deck and the man he was talking to looked over but she gave a weak thumbs-up sign and they turned away. 

It felt like every nerve cell in her body wanted to get out from under her skin and wreak havoc on the world. The organs she used to interpret the world didn't care to obey the messages her brain sent them. It felt like her entire body was rebelling. 

The shorter of the two men walked over and sat on a stool beside her bed. Asha could barely even tell he was Lydecker until he spoke. "We don't think your body is accepting the implant," he began. 

"What... Implant?" she wheezed. 

"The Red implant in the back of your neck. We think that's what caused your seizure... And it's either malfunctioning or your body just doesn't want it in there." 

She scoffed. "So... Get it out of me." 

He sighed, scratching his forehead. "We can't." 


End file.
